The View It can be hard to remember a time when there was no social media, when communication was verbal, or written on pieces of paper which were then dispatched to places far and near. With such means of interaction a responsibility normally attached to how we interacted with others. Any untruth, any calumny or…
The View When I was a little girl, all the best stories began with “Once upon a time…” It was a magical opening because I always wondered, “Where is this book taking me? When is it happening?” In the days before television (I am very old!) books were the medium through which I was transported…
The View Over the years I have been involved in the investigation of many murders which resulted from terrorist shootings and bombings, and deaths in violent situations. Such events are without question, terribly traumatising for those who are left behind – the family and friends of the person who died. My involvement has very often…
The View Campaigns to make euthanasia/assisted suicide legal are underway in both England and Wales, and here in Ireland. The most recent bill was before the House of Lords on Friday. We had just three minutes each to make the case against the bill…a challenge! That was very little time in which to contemplate the…
The View Quite suddenly it seems to me that we are moving very rapidly towards Christmas – it is just 12 weeks away and the shops are already beginning to offer Christmas decorations and presents! I was pondering on how rapidly time has passed in this strange coronavirus half-world which we have been inhabiting –…
The View I feel a sadness when I enter the chapel to go to Mass. There are so many empty seats. People simply are not coming back to Mass in the way they once did. Dr Gladys Ganiel wrote last week in this newspaper about the results of a survey by the Iona Institute which…
Twenty years ago on August 2, 2001 I wrote to the RUC Chief Constable telling him that, as Police Ombudsman, I was making enquiries into a newspaper report, on July 29, 2001, that a man called Kevin Fulton, said to be a former British security force agent, had said that had the police acted on…
The View Strange things have happened in the Catholic Church during recent years. Once the hierarchy of the Church and her clergy seemed, to so many of us, to be in some way superhuman, immune to normal temptations, strongly united through the graces of ordination in defence of the Church and her people against the powers…
The View In 1993, the great American writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou wrote that “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be un-lived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again”. Northern Ireland has been trying to find ways to face its past for decades now. In 2020, the New Decade, New…
The View For a long time now Ireland has been battling the Covid-19 pandemic and her people – north and south – have been trying to work out the implications of the UK’s Brexit vote and the NI Protocol. It was never going to be easy. Since the UK left the European Union (EU) there have…